We hope you had a wonderful start to the new school year! BTU staff were thrilled to join our educators in schools all over the district to welcome students back to school. As always, we are here to support you and work with you to have a wonderful school year. Check out the BTU Welcome Back video introducing the staff if you haven’t yet.
After 18 months of negotiations, we hope you will be able to join us for the big vote this Wednesday! The new contract ratification vote will take place tomorrow, September 13 at 4:30 PM during our first membership meeting of the year. The ratification Q&A will begin at 5 PM so that members from late schools have time to arrive. Please see the full notice language. Read the summary in plain language of the tentative agreement. This summary is not all-inclusive and is intended to highlight the main points of the agreement.
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Yesterday, two teacher members of our negotiating team responded to a misinformed Boston Globe op-ed to straighten out the record of our unassigned teachers in an important letter to the editor. Also newsworthy was the announcement from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) of a record-breaking fine for Families for Excellent Schools:
A wealthy New York organization that poured $15 million into last year’s unsuccessful ballot question to expand charter schools in Massachusetts was hit Monday with the largest fine in state campaign history after officials found the group was illegally hiding the identities of its donors.
Meanwhile, Mass Association of School Committees President Patrick Murphy had an excellent response to an op-ed by David Osbourne, who recently compared teachers unions to racist segregationist George Wallace while speaking about Massachusetts in Philadelphia! The comments are particularly hypocritical and absurd in light of yesterday’s OCPF fine and run contrary to our deep commitment to racial justice — as evidenced by our actions, not just rhetoric. We are deeply offended by his comments and support a petition that the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has started in light of his abhorrent comparison. We are also disappointed to learn that he will be speaking in Boston next Monday.
Regardless of the attacks, we will continue to go above and beyond to advocate and fight for our students, our schools and our profession because we know who we are and why we do what we do every day: we love our students, our families, and our communities.
